It’s superhero season again, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has me thinking about a few things. Ironically, it has me thinking because it didn’t have me thinking about much of anything after the film was over. My 140 character review—exactly 140, I might add—you have to love it when that happens sans some abortion of the English language—was this: “The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a fun movie that asks nothing of you past the couple hours in the theater and whatever you paid for your ticket.”
Seeing the film in IMAX 3D added to the playful release that this film provides. It’s just plain fun to feel like you’re swinging through the streets of New York with Spidey, showing up just in time to catch the summersaulting car before it crushes the pedestrians and police officers. And while this installment of the franchise reboot did take a bit of an unexpected turn (really only for those who don’t read the comics—I’ll leave spoilers out of this though), our time with Peter and the gang didn’t explore much of anything other than how to set up the next film, which looks to have a sextuplet of bad guys.
There are likely some things the filmmakers could have explored with Jamie Foxx’s Electro and other characters, but they didn’t. And that, in and of itself, doesn’t make this a bad or worthless film. Like I said, I found it worth quite a lot–a lot of fun. But in saying that, I realize that I suddenly find myself wondering if I then need to be asking some different questions of the film. Here’s what I mean.
Jessica DeCou recently published a version of her Ph.D. dissertation called Playful, Glad, and Free: Karl Barth and a Theology of Popular Culture. In it, she argues that the inherent significance of popular culture is how it helps us play, fellowship, and relax. She does not, after what seems to be a faithful and fair reading of Barth, see culture as a “source of divine revelation or an opportunity for encounter with the unconditioned.” Again, I think she’s likely reading Barth correctly, although this second point is one I don’t agree with and think is hard to ultimately support.
If all I should ever expect from films is that they help me play, fellowship and relax, then on one hand The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a total success. If we see film as “popular entertainment,” this seems like the kind of thing we’re talking about. But if film’s contribution to my spiritual life is simply in the world of play, than I have to ask myself if the content of the latest Spider-Man flick should be entertaining for me.
While it is a far cry from the darkness and violence of a film like The Dark Knight, I don’t think it ultimately is trying to do the same thing. By that I mean, I don’t think Christopher Nolan was looking first to entertain people with The Dark Knight as much as he was looking to explore the brokenness and fears of humanity in a post 9/11 America. Does that “justify” the violence of The Dark Knight? Maybe not for everyone, but it certainly gives it a framework and context that is far greater than simply being something to stare at while I cram popcorn in my mouth. I’m not sure I can say that for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
I really love what DeCou is arguing for in her book relative to the importance of popular culture in our lives as a place of gladness and play. Art isn’t only important in our lives when it makes us consider the deepest parts of our humanity. If Nolan, PT Anderson and other filmmakers who dive deeper into the mess of life were our only options when we showed up at the theater, they’d be better off selling boxes of Cymbalta in place of Mike and Ikes.
Entertainment is a high calling. We desperately need joy and fun in our lives and pop culture provides communal ways of experiencing it better than most anything. But, to demand that it can only play that role, that its significance ends there, is something that doesn’t ring true for me. So, many films do more than entertain me. Some films don’t entertain me all, but still prove to be significant experiences. And that being the case, I’m left both wondering about Barth’s blinders on culture and Spidey’s place in my movie queue.
Eric Kuiper is the Director of Ministry Programming at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, MI, the Executive Director of Into The Noise, an organization creating immersion experiences at major cultural festivals to understand how popular culture forms us spiritually, and is an adjunct professor of Theology + Film at Western Seminary in Holland, MI.